Multidisciplinary team will study effects of climate change on biodiversity of oceanic islands

The work will be developed by a multidisciplinary team made up of 5 main researchers belonging to ESMOI UCN and the University of Chile.

When thinking about the Oceanic Islands of Chile, the images are paradisiacal. Beautiful and distant places are recalled, where tranquility and a pleasant atmosphere reign, but the issue goes further, the importance of this sector for the protection of the planet’s biodiversity is relevant, since it is an area where around 50 % of the species, of which there is knowledge, are native and are only present in said ecosystems. Endemism is one of the highest in the world, and this makes it even more important to achieve conservation of the area.

With the threat of climate change, there is no clarity about what can happen in the sector, but it is a fact that it will have some degree of influence, the sea is warming up and losing oxygen, because the solubility of oxygen in water decreases with increasing temperature. temperature.

Due to the remoteness of the sector, the investigations are recent, there is much that is not known and it is necessary to reveal it, for this reason a group of researchers from the Center for Ecology and Sustainable Management of Oceanic Islands (ESMOI) of the Northern Catholic University (UCN) and the University of Chileled by the academic from the Faculty of Marine Sciences of the UCN, Dr. Javier Sellanes López, began the project “Ocean biodiversity under the threat of climate change” or BioDUCCT (by its name in English), whose objective is to learn more of the biodiversity of the area in order to determine the effect that climate change causes on the fauna of the sector.

BIOCEANIC CORRIDOR OF BIODIVERSITY

The BioDUCCT project is the winner of the 2022 Research Rings Contest in Specific Thematic Areas of the National Research and Development Agency (ANID), and will allow research in the seamounts of Nazca, and Salas y Gómez, which form a bioceanic corridor of biodiversity.

“These sectors are biologically significant areas, due to the biodiversity that is so characteristic of the area and the high degree of endemism of the species, since almost half of the known species are native to the sector. Worldwide, it is one of the highest values ​​of endemism in the ocean. One of the reasons why these areas are so biologically and ecologically significant”, stressed Dr. Javier Sellanes.

ESMOI has been studying the place for several years, however there is still a lot to learn. “Little is known about the fauna that exists in that area, we know that it is important, that it is unique, that it must be protected, the Motu Motiro Hiva, Nazca-Desventurada, the Juan Fernández Sea, Marine Parks have been created, but we need to know more about what species are in the sector. We do not know what the speed of Climate Change is in this sector and how it may be affecting such important biodiversity”, emphasized the academic from the UCN Faculty of Marine Sciences.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM

There will be 3 years of research in which various topics will be studied, such as the biodiversity of organisms that live at the bottom of the sea, marine conservation, physical oceanography of the sector, patterns of bird biodiversity, connectivity of sectors, among other topics. .

The work will be carried out by a multidisciplinary team made up of 5 main researchers, Doctors Javier Sellanes López, Carlos F. Gaymer García, Guillermo Luna Jorquera and Marcel Ramos Quezada, from ESMOI of the Universidad Católica del Norte and Doctor David Véliz Baeza, from the University of Chile. In addition, there will be 2 associate researchers, Doctors María de los Ángeles Gallardo Salamanca and Rocío Álvarez Varas, members of ESMOI.